It’s time to bring it in. Bring it ALLLL in… the green tomatoes and the fat-skinny cukes and the one-side-ripe peppers and the still-in-their-wrappers tomatillos and the beans (if the vines arent’ dead yet — mine are) — and the basil and and and…

OK, so you can leave the punkins and the carrots. But cover the lettuce bed. I don’t know about radishes, folks, I’m still new at this game, though I’ll certainly find out because my patch in the community plot has a few rows of them. I’ll be finding out this weekend if a frost really does put some sweet into the kale, and whether mizuna will survive. The northern forecast is almost spooky: Tonight: isolated showers and a low of 36; Saturday night, snow and rain and a low of 36; Sunday night, slight chance of rain/snow and a low of 31 — THIRTY ONE, folks. The Denver forecast is for a low of 35 all three nights. But if you live on the east side of a hill, that cold air is gonna roll down it and pool at the bottom, so things could get nipped tonight and Saturday without the temps going very low. On the other hand, those of you in the south, or with sloped beds that face south and have lots of rock to pump out heat all night, could be OK. As with everything, your mileage may vary.

My garden buddy’s husband says the “Straight Eight” cucumbers could put on a second blast of production after the frost, and in my outside voice I say, “wow! cool!” but inside my head, I’m saying, “dear heaven, let them finally die.” There are now 20 pints of cuke relish in my linen closet and today I pulled 18 new cucmbers out of the patch. I’ve gone from offering them to friends and co-workers as gifts to plopping a bagful on the counter and begging, “for the love of God, please TAKE THEM!” Not as bad as zucchini, but close, my friends, darn close.

The onset of frost is such a wonderful, bittersweet, sad-joyful time of year. Today I plucked all the yellow cherry tomatoes I had the heart for, and apologized to this plant that became its own jungle of productivity a few weeks too late — all because I planted it a few weeks too late. A double handful of fruits might ripen to their sweet, summery potential, but the rest are hard as big marbles, some barely green. The plant did its level best and it was just my own mismanagement (it needed much more attentive pruning and caging) that kept it from producing about a bushel. But they will be pickles, just like a half-bushel of Black Pear tomatoes and the last Yellow Brandywines and balcony tomatoes. Green tomato pickles.

The rain and gusts are going to shake some leaves down. If your fall ambition is to go leaf-peeping, or take pix of the kids with a pile of fiery-colored leaves, this is the start of the days of last chances.

As for me, I’ll listen to a song by Dave Mallett over and over again and remember my friend Kay, whose favorite time of year this was. The song is called <strong>”Autumn” off of Mallett’s “This Town” CD and it’s beautiful and aching and sad and joyful all at once:

“Autumn takes me by surprise
Fancy colors her disguise
but the chords of winter must arise
and the wild geese must go down.
Saying “Goodbye to ye mortal men,
Goodbye to the rain and wind,
For us there are no dreams nor sins,
Just an ancient, winding course …”

Susan Clotfelter has always played in the dirt, but got dragged into gardening as an obsession when she reclaimed her hell corner: a weed-infested patch of clay inhabited by one tough, lonely lilac and a thicket of weeds. Along with training as a Colorado State University Extension Master Gardener volunteer, she dug deeper with beds of herbs and lettuce at her home and rows of vegetables wherever she could borrow land. She writes for The Denver Post and other publications and appears on community radio.

Julie's passion for gardening began in spring of 2000 when she bought a fixer-upper in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood, and realized that the landsape was in desperate need of some TLC. During the drought of 2003, she decided to give up on bluegrass and xeriscape her front yard. She wrote about the journey in the Rocky Mountain News, in a series called Mud, Sweat & Tears: A Xeriscape story. Julie is an avid veggie gardener as well as a seasoned water gardener.